Girl helps provide food for peers

Piper Warren, 10, reads her letter with Dyron Howell, the founder of Snack Pak 4 Kids, outside the Snack Pak warehouse. Piper wrote a letter to her principal requesting the school host a fundraiser for the Snack Pack 4 Kids program to help feed kids during weekends and long breaks from school.

Some might look at Piper Warren and see a typical 10-year-old girl who likes playing sports and riding bikes with her friends and who occasionally likes to dabble in the newly-discovered world of makeup and fashion.

But anyone who takes a second glance can see this young girl is anything but average. As her mom, Q Warren, put it, Piper is a leader and “wise beyond her age.”

When Q Warren read Piper a news article about children in the Texas Panhandle who don’t always have enough to eat at home, Piper’s heart was stirred with sadness.

“It made me think, if I were in their shoes, I don’t know how I could even survive,” she said.

Instead of ignoring the feelings or thinking she was too young to help, she determined to do something. She immediately began putting her concerns to paper in a letter to her principal.

She asked if Windsor Elementary School, where she goes to school, could host a fundraiser for the organization Snack Pak 4 Kids, a local nonprofit that helps provide students with sacks of food during weekends and long breaks from school.

“If Windsor could hold this fundraiser, it would mean the world to me, because I would love to make a kid smile and not be hungry all the time,” she wrote.

“I don’t like to hear that kids are having to be hungry until they eat at school. It makes me sad for the kids who have to go through this.”

Piper said her principal was supportive and told her she is doing a good thing.

But Piper’s efforts did not stop there. She handed out fliers in her neighborhood, urging people to help by leaving boxes of Pop-Tarts on their front porch for her to collect.

Last week, she helped pack bags at the downtown warehouse, and she’s brainstorming her next move, considering a garage sale or a party where people bring food items.

Dyron Howell, the founder of Snack Pak 4 Kids, said it’s encouraging to see children helping their peers.

“When kids want to help kids, we’ve got to get behind that dream and imagination they have to make a difference,” he said.

“We’ve got a lot to learn from our kids about how to make a difference with their peers.”